One Saturday afternoon, I had to pick up some electrical tape at a discount retail store on the edge of town.

As I walked down the aisle, I saw a woman in a red vest stocking plastic storage bins onto a low shelf.

She was kneeling on the hard linoleum floor, her back bent, her face flushed with sweat.

It was Megan.

There was no wheelchair, no cane, and no neck brace.

She was lifting a heavy box of detergent, her face contorted with genuine physical strain.

I stopped at the end of the aisle and watched her for a moment.

She noticed me standing there and froze, holding a plastic bottle in her hand.

Our eyes met across the fluorescent-lit aisle.

The smug, manipulative look she had worn for ten years was entirely gone.

She looked tired, defeated, and old.

“Clara,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the store’s intercom music.

“Megan,” I said.

She looked down at the box of detergent, her fingers gripping the cardboard.

“Mom’s knees are bad,” Megan said, not looking at me. “She can’t work. I have to do double shifts just to pay the rent on the duplex.”